I have to give credit to new players entering the market. But basing success on a questionable metric is not a smartest move.

Are job aggregators, job boards?

One of the main problems of aggregating (or scraping) job ads is understanding when the job ad is unique, changed, or has been expired. You have to constantly scrape, compare and update your main database with the changes to ensure the users of the site are not redirected to expired job ads!

I had a quick look at a new site called uWorkin (jobs are pulled from MyCareer, Gumtree, Careerone, direct employers, etc). But they might want to check other job aggregation providers like Indeed, Recruit.net or Jobseeker.com.au to work out where they sit in the marketplace.

When you compare aggregators, you have to consider the number of duplicate job ads from multiple sources and weigh up the % of expired job ads.

Aggregators are not the primary source of the job, they can be the 2nd, 3rd, 4th or even 5th copy of the original job ad. But the credit for the application is always given to the primary source where the job application has been submitted.

If I look at this obscure job title, it is the same job ad from multiple sources.

I have found that In the Australian job board market there are some handy rules of thumb;

- all job ads are on SEEK (except for Jigsaw's apparently)
- a subset of those will also generally appear on CareerOne and/or MyCareer
- SEEK do not allow their site to be scraped so their ads are never (legally) aggregated
- the job aggregation model is fundamentally broken and is an unsatisfactory user experience
- the "next big thing" in job boards is nothing of the sort

Mark Van Goosen (2:20am Thursday 12 April 2012)

Brett - why is the job aggregation model fundamentally broken? how do you support that statement when Indeed.com has essentially validated the model with a golden seal by becoming the #1 most visited job site in the USA and overtaking all the dinosaur job boards!

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